Dealing with Paradox: Stories and Lessons from the First Three Years of Consortium-Building

A number of Humanitarian Directors from some of the larger agencies started to meet informally, often in pubs, to talk about common interests and questions. These meetings came to be known by the group as ‘Useful Gatherings’. The need to meet was prompted in part by the UN changing
its co-ordination of humanitarian assistance – which, it was felt, risked more fragmentation, and complexity for NGOs. Humanitarian Directors were finding it increasingly difficult to make coherent sense of the bigger picture. One thing was clear, however, that funding was beginning to flow very differently and in ways that were making it harder for NGOs to do their work in traditional ways.